


When I Fell In Love With Twelve

by orelseatlastsheunderstoodit



Series: My Doctor Meta [5]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2019-07-05 14:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15865968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orelseatlastsheunderstoodit/pseuds/orelseatlastsheunderstoodit
Summary: Written in response to the Thank You 12 prompt:July 16: The moment you fell in love with the 12th Doctor. Everyone has that moment that the new Doctor suddenly becomes the Doctor. What was yours?





	When I Fell In Love With Twelve

Since the Ninth Doctor was the first Doctor I ever knew and since the first moment where I was struck by who the Doctor is was Nine’s ‘turn of the world’ speech, I have a tendency to find the Doctor in some sort of declarative moment. For Ten, it was his joyful glee at saving both the patients and the new species of humans in “New Earth”. For Eleven, it was a combination of his speech at the end of “The Eleventh Hour” and his speech about who you never never put into a trap.

But beyond intriguing me in “Deep Breath” with a gleeful “Me!” when finding the window and calling people pudding-brains and being confused about where he got his face, Twelve hadn’t had such a moment. Not for me, anyway. Oh sure, he’d fought Robin Hood with a spoon and snark and robbed a bank and implored us to listen, but I was still getting used to his accent and his actions. He was trying to get used to not having the Time War hanging over him, the memory of 900 years of Trenzalore on his mind, and was uncertain as to who he was this time round. I liked him, but he hadn’t had a defining moment yet. Not in my eyes, anyway.

However, then “Mummy on the Orient Express” happened. While apparently most people remember the episode for shipping reasons, I remember this:

> CLARA: So you were pretending to be heartless.   
>  DOCTOR: Would you like to think that about me? Would that make it easier? I didn’t know if I could save her. I couldn’t save Quell, I couldn’t save Moorhouse. There was a good chance that she’d die too. At which point, I would have just moved onto the next, and the next, until I beat it. Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose. 

Clara asked what I’d been wondering, if this version of the Doctor was really as straightforwardly ruthless as he seemed to be (and as all the adverts for the series had hyped him to be), if he really was someone who forgot people’s names as soon as they were no longer useful.

But in this moment, he was the Doctor. He remembered Quell’s name, he remembered Moorhouse’s name (names  _I_  hadn’t even remembered). In his tone, in his look, he revealed that he was still the same old Doctor. He still cared, but he wasn’t just talking to Clara; maybe by pretending he was heartless, it would make it easier to bear all the losses.

And more than that, in that moment he was MY Doctor.

I can’t entirely explain why I now had this affinity with Twelve, but how many times had I done that exact thing?  _How many times had I pushed away how I felt in order to deal with the matter at hand?_  Emotions can distract, emotions can derail, emotions can overwhelm. And being overwhelmed in a crisis–well, if you’re constantly besieged by whatever, be it events at home or school or the universe, then you can’t be, you just can’t be overwhelmed. At least, not when other people are around, anyway. And if the dam breaks–well, you just can’t let the dam break. You suck it up and move on, you pretend that nothing bothers you and secretly hope that then maybe nothing will.

Of course, that’s a lie told to be of comfort to oneself. Because caring can hurt. And it can hurt a lot. It can hurt to be kind and to try and to feel all the things and have that thrown in your face, or worse yet, to fail in those things. And if people know how much it can hurt you to care, then…well, not everyone is kind about the fact that compassion can hurt you. In fact, some would view it as a weakness to exploit.

‘Oh, your heart’s always been on your sleeve,’ my mom always told me, and it always got me into trouble. I spent a lot of time as a kid and a teenager and young adult trying to pretend to be aloof in order to protect myself from the rejection I felt from others, especially when I chose to do the right thing in tough situations, especially when I chose to be kind.

It’s the same with the Doctor–sometimes the only choices we have are bad ones, but we still have to choose, and we both choose kindness. Even when we’re hiding it under a layer of prickliness. 

SO that’s the moment I fell in love with Twelve, or, at least, when my understanding of him shifted and I saw him clearly.


End file.
